Animated films "Made in Hamburg"

780,000 cinema-goers. A proud figure. That's how many people have seen the animated filmNiko - A reindeer takes off in Germany in 2009. It took around seven years to make the children's film, which has now almost achieved cult status and is shown every year on Christmas Eve on ZDF. The German-Finnish film was co-produced by the Hamburg-based company Ulysses, which has been involved in animation since 2004. A lot of time has passed since then and Ulysses has become a permanent fixture on the European animation market. In 2016, Ulysses CEO Emely Christians was voted Executive Producer of the Year by 750 industry professionals at Cartoon Movie. Films likeOoops! The ark is gone,High-flyers: Small birds, big clatter or currentLuis and the alienshave sold in over 170 territories outside Germany. More than 600,000 people have seen "Ooops!" in France alone, and around half a million in the UK.

European kids can hardly get enough of the quirky characters that Ulysses creates together with Hamburg-based animation company Studio Rakete and other European partners: "Children are a really demanding audience and very attentive when it comes to content - they often understand the stories intuitively and on a completely different level to us adults. They quickly uncover illogical storylines - but when things get dicey for their heroes, they hope for miracles," reveals Emely Christians. Ulysses has taken home numerous prizes at festivals with a children's jury in recent years, which makes Christians particularly happy. But to be creative, you need the right environment. She and her team feel very much at home in Hamburg: "We have great talent in all areas in the Hanseatic city: Character designers, animators and composers, for example, strong people in the technical and administrative areas and in post production. And we now dare to do more, we don't have to hide behind American studios," says Christians.

Over the past few years, 78 companies in the animation and cartoon film sector have established themselves in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, including many companies that are now known far beyond the state's borders: For example, the "Animationsfabrik", founded in 2000, is responsible for the animation of the filmAnother Day of Life which recently celebrated its world premiere in Cannes and was co-produced by the Hamburg-based company Wüste Film. The film by Directors Raúl de la Fuente and Damian Nenow impressively proves that animated films are by no means just for children. The two tell a story withAnother Day of Life the gripping story of a three-month journey by the famous Polish reporter Ryszard Kapuściński through war-torn Angola. The Hamburg and Cologne-based company Little Dream Entertainment, run by Ali Samadi Ahadi and Frank Geiger, also produces animated films for an adult audience. Last year, the dark Iran filmTehran Taboo by Directors Ali Soozandeh won numerous festival awards. The production and distribution company is currently working on the animated DocumentaryLittle Teutonswhich aims to show how children grow up in neo-Nazi families. Directors are Frank Geiger and his "brave new work" colleague Mohammad Farokhmanesh. The production company WunderWerk, on the other hand, is in the process of adapting the famous children's book seriesThe Olchis as an animated film. A Short Tiger was awarded this year for the short filmCarlotta's Face by the Hamburg studio Fabian&Fred, which was founded in 2011 by Fabian Driehorst and Frédéric Schuld. Dirk Beinhold's production company Akkord Film is responsible for one of the most successful German animated films of the past year: around 318,000 viewers watched the film.The bunny school - Hunt for the golden bunnyEi in German cinemas, which celebrated its premiere at the Berlinale in 2017.

But it doesn't always have to be big cinema, as Ceylan Beyoglu proves: Under the name "Storykid Studio", the Hamburg native produces animated short films that exude a special charm thanks to a combination of analogue and digital techniques and whose painstaking attention to detail is more than apparent. "I worked on my first two short films for almost two years each, made a lot of mistakes and learnt from them. But I'm much faster with my current project. I used to be able to create an average of 12 seconds of animation per week. Now I'm in the process of developing a new technique for myself, with which I can create around ten seconds a day, reveals Beyoglu. She is currently her only collaborator, but she works with partners on things like music composition and sound design. She has gradually expanded her network through institutions such as the AG Animationsfilm and the annual Hamburg Animation Conference. She taught herself how to animate with the help of books and tutorials on the Internet. A long path that is now bearing fruit - her short films, which manage completely without dialogue and therefore work in any language, speak for themselves.

In general, there are of course some differences in production when comparing an animated film with a live-action film: "We are always indoors and never have to deal with bad weather - or any disagreements between Directors and actors," says Emely Christians with a wink. One fundamental difference, however, is the editing: "Once the storyboard is finished and the layout has been realised in the 3D room, we almost have the finished cut. At the end, we cut a few frames here and there, but in general we hardly ever produce any excess seconds. That would be far too expensive. For us, a minute of film costs a lot of money, so precise planning by our production and Unit Production Managers and a clear vision of the film on the part of the Directors are essential," says Ulysses CEO Christians. The dialogue will also be recorded before the animation work begins. A kind of radio play is made with the original speakers in English: "The animators then have this as a basis, because they need to know what mood the respective character is in and how often they take a breath, for example when laughing or crying," reveals Christians. An exciting process that no longer has much in common with a real film.